Current Art Shows

Thursday, June 24, 2004 at 4 a.m.

Definitive Juxt: Curated by Lissette Garcia and co-organized by José Carlos Diaz at the Odegard Building in the Design District, this show challenges viewers to accommodate highly personal visions of a group of Miami artists. Works by the Paper Dolls, Mauricio Espinosa, Sarah Murrie, Brian O'Dell, Jason/Opalka, Bert Rodriguez, Gustavo Roman, and Eugenia Vargas all investigate levels of engagement with popular culture. Overall, the installation of this show is handsome and theatrical. The risk highlighted is whether artistic eccentricity necessarily yields a transcendent experience, or merely devolves into the formulaic, the obscure, and the confusing. -- Michelle Weinberg Through July 8. Odegard Building, 47 NE 36th St; 305-205-8079 (by appointment only).

The Excluded: Robson Oliveira's humanism is apparent in this show. The self-proclaimed "activist" photographer's digital photos of poor people from developing nations focus on symbols of exclusion from the prosperity of industrial consumer culture. Oliveira highlights certain images in each print, reaching hard for a sensation of contrast and urgency. The result is stylistically more akin to advertising or propaganda photos. His avowed plea to the viewer to become aroused by the poverty of his subjects loses much of its impact because it glosses over a potent element in his equation: his own use of privileged technology. -- Michelle Weinberg Through June 25. Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Solange Rabello Gallery, 180 NE 39th St. #122. 305-571-9302.

Suspended Objects: Dario Escobar takes symbols of mass consumption and morphs them into aesthetic counterfeits, fake agitprop, or grown-up toys. He describes his mind twists as "modern folly" or "cultural repertoire legitimated by our collective memory." Either way, you feel ambivalently pulled by these pieces as if you could play with them, yet they belong in some ideological space between Terry Eagleton and AdBusters. Escobar's is a timely critique of capitalism, though his wit can, in the end, bite its own tail -- that is, if consumption's representation ends up being consumed. -- Alfredo Triff Through August 30. Karpio-Facchini Gallery, 1929 NW First Ave. 305-576-4454.